Donald Trump Jr. road show in Ohio was no joke

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WEST CHESTER, OHIO — It's a chilly, drizzly evening, but Donald Trump Jr. is putting on a red-hot show at Lori's Roadhouse, a bar and music joint in a strip mall on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Pretending to be a befuddled, senile President Joe Biden, Don Jr. staggers around the low stage, eyes unfocused, making confused gestures and blundering into the giant red-white-and-blue backdrop.

The crowd, a couple of hundred MAGA fans and local Republican players, laps up the wickedness. This is Don Jr.'s last public appearance of the day on behalf of J.D. Vance, whose Senate candidacy was recently endorsed by Trump Sr. As at earlier stops, the audience whoops and laughs and hollers "Amen!" as Trump the Younger slashes at a series of targets: Democrats, the media, RINOs (Sen. Mitt Romney is taking a serious beating), Big Tech, America's "stupid" military leaders and so on.

Don Jr. clearly inherited the family flair for showmanship. (Democrats would do well to keep an eye on his political development. In particular, the ladies here are gaga over him.) He deploys funny voices and goofy faces, his comic timing is spot-on, and he has a vicious streak untempered by decency or accuracy. "The other side has literally taken the stance that it's OK to be a groomer," he charges, promoting the MAGAworld calumny that Democrats are pro-pedophile. Even on this dark topic he draws laughs by marveling that, in his younger days, "being antipedophile was something that we could all agree on!"

Off to the side, chuckling awkwardly, hands jammed into his jeans pockets, stands Vance. Tall and burly, with carefully manicured facial hair, the candidate has already done his quick opening act and faded into the background like a good sidekick. He gazes attentively at the former president's son, nodding appreciatively, clapping and grinning at all the appropriate (or, rather, inappropriate) moments. He takes out his phone to snap the occasional photo. Once or twice, he shoots a glance at the audience, as if to see how this show is playing. (Answer: very well.) Distinctly overshadowed, Vance is aware that, while his name may be on the yard signs and stickers spread around the bar, he is not who most folks have come to see.

Because Vance is no longer the star of his own race to win Tuesday's Republican primary in Ohio for U.S. Senate. The moment he got the much-coveted Trump tap on April 15, the election became about one thing only: whether the former president has the juice to propel an unexceptional candidate to victory.

Trump's kingmaking ability is, in fact, the Big Question facing the entire GOP this election cycle. Ohio is just the first test, the first time voters go to the polls in a race where the former president has put his political credibility and influence so solidly on the ballot. Vance is arguably a perfect test case for Trump: weak enough to need a boost but with enough potential to make him a worthwhile risk. Anyone still hoping to see the Trumpified GOP return to sanity any time soon should be rooting for Vance to fail.

The contest to replace Sen. Rob Portman, who is retiring, was already among this cycle's rowdiest and most expensive. Multiple conservatives have been jockeying to present themselves as the most MAGA-rific, with party players and moneymen picking favorites. Among the many contenders, Jane Timken, a former state Republican Party chair, has been endorsed by multiple senators (Portman, Shelley Moore Capito, Joni Ernst and Deb Fischer) and denizens of Trumpworld (Kellyanne Conway, David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski). Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer, is backed by Sen. Ted Cruz, the Club for Growth and Ohio Value Voters.

Until recently, Vance had not been doing so well. Best known as the author of "Hillbilly Elegy," his 2016 memoir widely embraced as a blue-staters' guide to red-state values and grievances, his past was a bit too checkered for some conservatives. He attended Yale Law. He worked as a venture capitalist. Most damning, he was an avowed Never Trumper during the 2016 presidential election — and we're not talking gentle criticisms. He called Trump "noxious," "reprehensible," "an idiot" and "cultural heroin"; fretted over Trumpism's racist elements; and privately suggested Trump was "America's Hitler."

Like so much of the party, Vance has changed his tune, now prostrating himself before Trump with as much zeal as anyone. (Except maybe Kevin McCarthy. That level of sycophancy is something special.) Even so, rolling into April, Vance's campaign chest was light (despite the generosity of his former boss, the tech billionaire Peter Thiel), and polls showed him lagging other conservatives, including Mandel, who has made his own dash to the hard right in recent years.

Trump has said he chose to bless Vance because "we have to pick somebody that can win." Why he decided Vance is that somebody has prompted head-scratching. Certainly, there is nothing the former president enjoys as much as watching a former adversary grovel, and Vance has been happy to gush about how wrong he was in 2016 and what a great president Trump turned out to be. (Best of his lifetime!) Trump may have been swayed by Vance's admirers, notably Don Jr., Tucker Carlson and Thiel, a megadonor to Trump as well as to Vance. Trump is said to have been put off by an ugly confrontation between Mandel and another candidate during a debate in March.

Trump may also be taken with Vance's quasi-fame and frequent TV appearances. The former president has a long-standing love affair with celebrities — and, perhaps better than anyone, grasps the value of celebrity in electoral politics.

Team Vance's mission has been to hawk his status as "the only Trump-endorsed candidate" in the race. This is the verbatim message of a new TV ad running in the state, and it was one of the first things out of Don Jr.'s mouth at Lori's Roadhouse.

Even Vance seems to understand that what is at stake here has little to do with him.

Michelle Cottle is a member of the New York Times Editorial Board, focusing on U.S. politics. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration.